Preparation of shoe uppers



Sept 2, 1930. I 1.; TOPHAM 1,774,520

PREPARATION OF SHOE UPPERS Original Filed Jan, 25, 1924 Patented Sept. 2, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE LAURENCE E, TOPHAM, OF \VENHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR T0 UNITED SHOE v MACHINERY CORPORATION, OF PATERSON, NEW JERSEY, A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY PREPARATION OF SHOE UPPERS Application filed January 25, 1924, Serial No. 688,470. Renewed June 20, 1927.

This invention relates to the manufacture of shoes and particularly tothe preparation of shoe uppers to facilitate the conformation of them to the shape of a form or last.

For the sake of economy it is a usual practice to use short Vamps, that is, Vamps that are only long enough to reach a short distance beyond the tip seam. Such vamps are completed by toe pieces that are sewed in. overlapping relation to the toe ends of the Vamps, the lining and toe box materials being relied upon'to supply the. necessary stilfness to provide shapely and durable box toes. This practice saves vamp material without materially affecting the appearance and durability of the shoe.

It has been customary to cut the short vamp. and toe piece so that when they are laid out flat with the toe piece overlapping the vamp the front edge of the vamp and the rear edge of the toe piece will be parallel to each other. The parts are then secured together by a seam or seams above referred to as the tip seam. The periphery of such a flat upper is usually about an inch longer than the periphery of the part of the insole, for example the insole rib, to which the upper is ultimately to be attached, and hence this amount of excess material has to bewtaken care of in molding or lasting the toe end of the upper. Properly to dispose of this excess of material .and to give it the proper shape without folds or wrinkles appearing on the exposed part of the toe constitutes a great difliculty in toe molding or lasting, as previously practised.

In view of these facts an object of this invention is to provide a shoe upper comprising vamp and toe parts so designed and attached as to minimize the difficulty of molding or lasting the toe to its final shape.

In one broad aspect the invention provides a novel method of producing such an upper which comprises providing a short vamp, the front edge of which may be either'straight or concave with respect to the toe end of the shoe, providing a toe piece with its rear edge concave with respect to the toe end but having a greater curvature than that of the front edge of the vamp, then securing the vamp and the toe piece together with the toe piece overlapping the front edge of the vamp and with the front edge of the vamp and the rear edge of the toe piece in parallel relation. The overlapping surfaces of the parts may be secured initially by cement and later stitched together. q

A convenient procedure for bringing the front edge of the vamp and the rear edge of the toe piece into parallel relation consists in giving the vamp an outward cylindrical convexity and the toe piece an outward conical convexity while bringing the parts at the ends of the tip line into proper overlapping relation.

In order that the ends of the tip line on both the vamp and the toe piece may be conveniently overlapped in the desired relation, each side margin of the vamp adjacent to its front edge may be provided with a'pe'rforation and the toe piece may have a similar perforation in each margin adjacent to its rear edge, the transverse spacing of the tip perforations being the same as that of the vamp perforations. Preferably, first the vampand then the toe piece are positioned by threading their perforations over pins spaced apart a less distance than the transverse spacing of the perforations, so that the overlapping margins of the vamp and toe piece may assume the required outward convexity and the main or body portionof the toe piece may be given the aforementioned conical form. While in this position the cemented overlapping margins of the upper are caused to adher and are later securedby sewing. The shortening of the periphery of the toe portion of an upper thus produced is, for exam ple, proportional to and equal to twice the divergence between the front edge of'the vamp and the rear edge of the toe piece, measured at one end of-said' edges when said edges are placed tangent to each other with the parts in a plane and with their longitudinal medianlines coincident. This divergence, of course, may be varied according to the amount it is desiredto shorten the periphery of the toe portion of the upper. V An upper having the periphery of its toe portion thus shortened may be molded or lasted to the shape of the toe portion of a mold or last including the formation of its margin over the bottom of the mold or last and against the upstanding rib thereon with a minimum of care and efiort, the liability of the formation of undesirable folds or wrinkles during the operation being substantially eliminated because there is so much less material than usual to be gathered in about the toe, worked over the last bottom and, in the case of a welt shoe, conformed to the angle between the feather and rib or lip of the innersole.

The invention provides also novel apparatus comprising locating pins for the parts of the upper and a block having a cylindrical surface and a conical surface meeting substantially on a line between the pins, the axes of the said curved surfaces being preferably coincident.

These and other aspects of the method and features of the apparatus employed will appear more fully from the following detailed description when read in connection with the accompanying drawing and will be pointed out in the appended claims.

In the drawing,

Fig. 1 is a plan View of a short vamp and a toe piece made in accordance with the present invention, the rear edge of the toe piece being tangent to the front edge of the vamp to show the divergence of its edges at the end of the tip line;

Fig. 2 is a similar view showing the toe piece overlapping the vamp at the central portion of its front margin;

Fig. 8 is a perspective view of novel apparatus which can be advantageously used in the practice of the present method; and

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of a lasted shoe toe the upper of which has been prepared according to the present method.

A short vamp 2 and a toe piece 4 are made from patterns or by dies, the front edge 6 of the vamp and the rear edge 8 of the toe piece having different curvatures. The edge 6 may be straight, that is, of infinite curvature, or may be slightly concave with re spect to a point A to allow for the longitudinal tension put upon the upper in shaping it to a form or last, which tension will straight en this edge and bring it into a plane extending transversely of the toe and substantially perpendicular to the bottom of the forepart. The edge 8 is concave with respect to the same point A but on a shorter radius than the edge 6. If the parts are placed in flat condition, as shown in Fig. 1. with their edges tangent and their median lines AB coincident, the edges will diverge at each side, the amount of divergence being a measure of the amount the periphery of the toe portion will be shortened by bringing the edges in contact throughout their extent. As above stated, the periphery of the toe portion of the upper is, generally speaking, about an inch longer than the line to which it has to conform when it is molded or lasted to a form or last, this line being represented roughly by the binding wire 10 in Fig. 4:. The divergence of the edges 6 and 8 in Fig. 1 may be five sixteenths of an inch on each side or five eighths in all. Thus, there will be only three eighths of an inch difference between the length of the periphery of the upper and the line to which it is to conform when lasted. Only this three-eighths inch difference, then, has to be taken care of in the lasting or molding of the upper which, of course, can very readily be done.

In practice, the toe piece must overlap the vamp substantially the distance of a line CD (Fig. 2) from the edge (3 of the vamp, the line CD being drawn parallel to the edge 6 of the vamp and spaced from it the distance the parts are to overlap. figure the parts are still flat, the edge 8 of the toe piece 4 being tangent to the line C-D at its central portion and the divergence of the edge 8 at its ends from the line CD being equivalent to the divergence of the edges 6 and 8 in Fig. 1. In the completed upper the edge 8 of the toe piece is to be brought into coincidence with the line 0-D on the vamp. This can be done only by allow the parts to be distorted from the plane in which they lie. To facilitate this distortion and to bring the parts at the ends of the tip line into proper overlapping relation, perforations 12, 14; may, advantageously as illustrated, be made in the margin of the vamp adjacent to its side and front edges, and similar perforations 16, 18 may be made in the toe piece, the distance between the perforations in the vamp and the distance between the perforations in the toe piece being sub stantially the same.

The next step in the present method consists in so distorting the parts, that is, so bendin them out of their original plane, as to bring the edge 8 of the toe piece 4: into coincidence with the line CD on the vamp 6. This may conveniently be effected by the use of the apparatus shown in Fig. 3. which consists of a block 20 having one part 22 cylindrically convex and another part 24; conically convex. On each side of the block adjacent to the line where the conical surface meets the cylindrical surface is arranged a pin 26, the pins extending above the cylindrical surface of the block and being spaced apart at the surface of the block a distance less than the distance between the perforations 12, 14 in the vamp, that is, so that the distance between the pins measured along the convex surface of the block will be the same as the distance between the perforations. The pins may advantageously be arranged, as illustrated, in outwardly diverging relation so that the distance between the ends of the pins will be equal to the dis In this tance between the perforations in the vamp and toe piece while still flat. The upper margin of the vamp or the lower margin of the toe piece, or both, having been previous ly coated with cement, the perforations in the vamp are threaded upon the pins 26 and the vamp slid down the pins and made to conform to the cylindrical curvature 22 of the block. The toe piece l then has its perforations 16, 18 threaded upon the pins 26 and is moved down and pressed into conformity to the conical curvature 24 of the block. In this way the parts are so distorted that the edge 8 of the toe piece overlaps the vamp a uniform distance and is parallel to the edge 6 of the vamp.

The overlapping portions of the parts are then pressed together to cause them to adhere, and the parts thus uni-ted are removed from the pins 26 and will be held temporarily in proper relation until they can conveniently be united permanently by sewing the tip seam. This is best done on a machine having a cylindrical work table so that the shape that the upper has been made to assume will not be disturbed.

After sewing, the upper may be provided with a lining and with toe box materials and then subjected either to a molding 0r lasting operation to conform the toe portion to the shape of a form or last. Either of these operations will be greatly facilitated because, by the previous steps of the method, the length of the periphery of the toe portion of the upper has been made to correspond so nearly to the length of the periphery of the last or form, for instance, the periphery of theinsole measured along the base of the sewing rib or lip. In consequence, as shown in Fig. 4, the upper prepared by the present method can be smoothly lasted over the toe end of the last and over the feather of the insole, and the wrinkles appearing in the upwardly projecting margin of the upper are reduced to a minimum.

Having thus described my lnvention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. That improvement in methods of pre paring shoe uppers whicl1 cons1sts 1n providing a short vamp, prov1d1ng a toe plece having the curvature of its rear edge greater than the curvature of the front edge of the vamp, overlapping the toe piece upon the vamp, distorting the parts to cause the toe piece to overlap the vamp a uniform distance from side to side, and securing the parts together.

2. That improvement in methods of preparing shoe uppers which consists in shaping a vamp to a cylindrical surface, shaping a toe piece to a conical surface, overlapping the toe piece upon the vamp, and securing the parts together to produce an upper having a shortened periphery about its toe port1on.

3. That improvement in methods of preparing shoe uppers for subsequent toe shaping operations which consists in providing a vamp with perforations adjacent to the ends of the tip line, preparing a toe piece with similar and equally spaced perforations, and indexing the perforations of the toe piece with the perforations of the vamp and distorting the parts to cause the toe piece uniformly to overlap the front edge of the vamp.

4. That improvement in methods of preparing shoe uppers for subsequent toe shaping operations which consists in providing a short vamp having its front edge straight or concave with perforations adjacent to the ends of the tip line, preparing a toe piece with its rear edge curved on a shorter radius than the front edge of the vamp and with similar and equally spaced perforations, indexing the perforations of the toe piece with the perforations of the vamp, and distorting the parts to cause the toe piece uniformly to overlap the front edge of the vamp with their edges in parallel relation.

5. That improvement in preparing shoe uppers for subsequent toe shaping operations which consists in providing a short vamp with a curved front edge, providing a toe piece with a rear edge of greater curvature than the edge of the vamp, overlapping the toe piece upon the vamp, oylindrically distorting the vamp, and conically distorting the toe piece to cause the rear edge of the toe piece to lie in substantially parallel relation to the edge of the vamp.

6. That improvement in preparing shoe uppers for subsequent toe shaping operations which consists in providing a short vamp, providing a toe piece with a periphery from tip line to tip line shorter than that of a usual toe piece appropriate to the vamp, ove lapping the toe piece upon the vamp at the ends of the tip line, convexly curving the vamp and the toe piece and bringing the axis of curvature of the toe piece into such i angular relation to the aXis of curvature of the vamp that the rear edge of the toe piece will lie in proper overlapping relation to ithe vamp throughout the length of the tip 7. An apparatus for use in assembling parts of shoe uppers in proper relation to be secured together, comprising a block having a cylindrically curved surface and an adjacent conically curved surface, the aXes of said curvature being coincident, and pins located adjacent to the meeting edges of the surfaces to receive indexing perforations in the parts to be assembled.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification.

LAURENCE E. TOPHAM. 

